Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!

Friday, May 7, 2010

What is Required

Somewhere in this mixed up century, we came to the deluded conclusion that if we pad enough of life, we'll never get a skinned knee and that nothing of value can come from ever having experienced a bruise or a bump or a hurt feeling.

Somewhere across time, we went from sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me to names can hurt me so anyone who names me as I do not which to be named shall be stoned. Somewhere in recent history, we went quite mad as a society when we embraced the idea that while life isn't fair, it should be and all unfairness not in our favor shall be deemed evil.

Somehow we decided as a civilization that suffering has no purpose and no meaning and as such, should not be tolerated except when we can ascribe a value and a meaning. The actual meaning and value (by the way) must be readily accessible to everyone or it is a mere projection of wishful hopes and an overly optimistic coping mechanism.

People in America can now control the air in their room, their side of the car, the firmness of their mattress and what TV they watch when. We have created a heightened sense of anxiety about everything because suddenly numbers rule everything. We watch the Dow spiral. We watch our calories. We measure our inhales and our exhales and the fat and salt content and sugar in grams, in milligrams, in ounces. We measure the minutes, we bill the hours and with all our knowledge, with all our access to knowledge, we still cannot create one minute more in the day nor can we guarantee that if we do everything perfectly, we won't suffer. It is a giant dellusion to think otherwise but we constantly act shocked with life takes more effort, more commitment, or more energy than we wanted to give.

Life has random elements, friendships that grow and those that die, weeds that take root, pounds unexpectedly stubborn and minutes that get lost. There are bills we forget about and ones that are bigger than we preanticipated and weather that rains out playoffs. There is always more to do and there are always people doing more than us. Sometimes, doing more isn't better and sometimes we can do everything right and someone else will still win. Being constantly on alert to measure and weigh and anticipate everything still doesn't mean everything won't get screwed up when the lights finally go dark and the curtain finally rises. We freeze. We forget lines. We forget our place in the universe and we forget our primary job. We're human.

We spend much of our modern days trying to be free from want, from need, from all discomfort, from all we disagree with, from all pain, from all work, from all that requires the more from us that makes us human. Animals live within their limits. They conserve energy. They hunt when they are hungry. They do not eat when they are not. They sleep as they need. Their lives are measured by instinct and the physical limits of their being. Our lives exceed our instincts in all things. To be human is to have physical limits we ignore and mental and emotional limits we impose and not always have the wisdom or the instinct to know the difference.

Our goal in life is not to not suffer; but to do, to have our body doing and our spirit being such that whatever unfairness we find, we make less painful, whatever injustice we suffer, we do not nurse, that our needs and wants are not mixed up, and that Our wants and Our needs do not dominate the landscape of our souls or how we pour out our lives. We are made for others. My youngest son woke this morning with a runny nose and rejected his normal breakfast of toast and cheerios until I held him and kissed his forehead constantly. This is what is required of us, not that we can cure the cold or eliminate the reality of colds, but that we can be close with and hold those who hurt for whatever reason. It is all that is required; that we let God do the measuring of our lives, and we be willing to live them to the fuller measure that is God's.

The Chocolate Brain behind the Blog

My name is Sherry Antonetti. I write about the trials and humor of raising children, reflection articles on the Catholic faith lived, and profiles of everyday holiness. Why do I write on these things? To discover the deeper beauty of the martyrdom lived out moment by moment, and to avoid being discouraged or bogged down by minutia. Living out one's faith is an incremental experience of errands, stories, to do lists and details, it is not that we got to everything, but how we treated everyone in the process of trying to get to everything that reveals how much we live in the Holy Spirit, or how much we are estranged.

FAQ'S about this blog, a fabricated interview with footnotes.

Hi! Welcome to my blog. You can read my stuff here and at new.catholicmom.com. I publish there on Thursdays, with Small Successes!

FAQ's about this blog, a fabricated interview*

Q. Why CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN?

A. You've heard of Chicken Soup for your Soul...well this is a similar principle. Chocolate, like laughter, produces endorphins in the brain, pleasant feelings, and that's what this blog is supposed to do.

Also, I have a pet theory about Comedy, that Good Humor is like a Chocolate Bar. It contains bits of nuts and a nougat of truth. The chocolate coating makes it go down easier, because no one wants to eat a bar of pure nougat.

Q. Why didn't you name your blog Chocolate for Your Brain in the URL?

A. Because I was new to the blogiverse and did not comprehend at that point how to make a blog much less market it, and therefore, I've just stayed with that URL which promotes my name but unfortunately tells the reader nothing about my blog or its clever title.

Q. It's your blog, why not change?

A. I'm a conservative Catholic, according to the news media, I fear change.

Q. That was funny! How do I leave a comment?

A. Scroll down to the bottom of the posted blog piece. It should look like this:

Q. How can I know if there's new stuff other than when you say you'll post?

A. At the bottom of the page, you'll see Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Click on it and you can receive automatic email updates that the blog has been updated. I do promise to update it on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday otherwise, so you can just check those times if you'ld rather.

Q. Why do you write a blog, it's not like you don't have other things to tend to, other things to do?

A. I like writing. I like writing to make people laugh. It's good practice for my brain. Consider these stories mental gymnastics, less time consuming than soduku and more fun.

Q. Why aren't all of your articles from the Beaumont Enterprise or Catholic Standard linked?

A. What a thoughtful and observant question! Most of the pieces I've written for both of these publications were not posted on their websites, so I have no links to post. But I've also been at this for now 7 years, so if I linked everything, there would be nothing but links and that gets tedious.Thanks for letting me clear that up.

Q. Aren't I you?

A. Well, yes. But this format made it so much easier to explain everything. Thank you for your time, that's all the questions for today folks.

Sherry, you're doing a heck of a job!

Editor's note from the *. Despite similarities --monitoring communications and fabricating interviews, this blog is NOT affiliated with FEMA in any way.

Despite being satirical on occasion against the current congress and administraiton, this site HAS not been fact checked by CNN.

This blog is not a construct of FOX news, talk radio or a limb of the Republican party or any vast right wing conspiracy.

Thoughts expressed here are my own and not underwritten by the insurance agencies or any other soul free corporations. (Believe me, I'd know if I was being paid).

WAXY CHEAP CHOCOLATE SOLD AT HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE PHARMACY

I work and I write and I suffer but don't feel any guilt about it because You are worth it.

No.No. You don't have to get me anything for Christmas either.

Why?

Because I love you. Not just you but the whole Blogosphere and the whole Blogging world. That's right, I'm just a sentimental ball of mush, sort of like a melted whopper you find underneath the car seat because some kid in the Halloween Candy screening process found and rejected a piece without first offering the offending Chocolate to his mother.

I feel so used.

NOTE: CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN UPDATES on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday! Updates are guaranteed by 5:00 pm that day or your money back. What's that? You didn't pay? Wait.... How does this thing work?

Let me know how I'm doing folks! You can email me at sherryantonettiwrites@yahoo.com

Quotables from Sherry's Brain

On pain...

"I don't need anesthesia if I can still crack a joke."

On the absurdity of everyday minutia...

"What Would Flannery O'Connor do?"

On Excellence where ever it is pronounced by an official, movies, politics, books, policies, people...

"If this is the best there is, then man are we in trouble."

On viewing my own karotype after a DNA screening test...

"My geneotype came back normal so all my faults are of my own doing."

On humor:

"Laughter is priceless but don't worry, all of this blog is free."

On what God will say to me one day...

"I gave you all these people, all these gifts. What were you doing blogging away time on the internet?"

My E-Book On Sale!

Click on this to get your copy of The Book of Helen autographed!

WRITING MY NEXT BOOK

The working title is The Book of Penelope.
Continuing the story, we will discover the internal odyssey the wife of Odysseus took from the day he left her side until she finally reinvited him into her heart.
Currently at 75K...and counting. Goal 500 words a day. Stay tuned...

Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.
Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.
Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders.
I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will.